Celebrate National Women’s History Month

It’s easy to do with multiple titles from Dover Books.

Women world-wide will celebrate International Women’s Day on Wednesday with gatherings and events. In America, we have our own focus thanks to the National Women’s History Project, an organization with the goal of writing women back into history. You can do your own research about history with selected titles from Dover.

Too often, the voices of women are ignored or not given pride of place. Dover has some excellent source material available to correct this imbalance. Great Speeches by American Women includes the words of the American abolitionist Sojourner Truth as well as Nancy Pelosi’s speech from 2007, when she became the first woman Speaker of the House. It also pays to recall those considered the lowliest in society. Dover’s edition of Women’s Slave Narrativesprovides a powerful bridge from Black History Month in February to National Women’s History Month in March.

And while we think of history as being the deeds of great men, history is more often made by individuals who perform the day-to-day tasks to keep the household going and its inhabitants fed and clothed. Dover has a few titles that examine the lives of American women who labored mightily, day by day, and also how they did it. Woman’s Life in Colonial Timesand Home Life in Colonial Days offer accounts of days past, while The American Frugal Housewife is a how-to book from the 1830s — nearly 200 years ago! If you need to know how to prepare a calf’s head, this is your go-to book!

Some revolutions are made in the kitchen, others on the streets. Dover has reprints of the works of famous anarchist Emma Goldman. Immigrant to America as a teenager and deportee to Russia in 1920, Goldman wrote about the lives of the oppressed and her disillusionment with the Soviet system.

And it’s always a great time to color! Sometimes you just want something pretty, and Dover has wonderful coloring books filled with the both the frothiest and most minimal of styles for women. Isn’t it funny that for humans in Western culture, display and plumage are deemed more appropriate for the female than the male?

For a view of Americans from one of our cousins across the pond, Dover carries Frances Trollope’s Domestic Manners of the Americans. Spoiler alert: While Mrs. Trollope, mother of British novelist Anthony Trollope, didn’t always approve, she was always impressed.